Duster (9781310020889) (14 page)

"Hot dang, that's cold!" he hollered. Which
didn't make much sense, I thought, but it's exactly what he
said.

"Come on, y'all," Split called out to the
rest of us. "Move up, doggies. Aiiiii-ya-ya-ya."

Split and Tommy was on the downstream side
of the herd, too, and Eben was on the left—and me, of course, back
at the drag.

We all set to with whooping and yelling and
loud whistles we made by stickin' a couple of fingers in our mouth,
and we beat on our leggings with our ropes until they was under
water and didn't do more than splash. The cattle bawled and blew
air and tossed their heads around until the sounds of horns hitting
against more horns was about as loud as pistol shots. But they
moved while they was complaining about it, and in no time at all
they was strung out in the water swimming as hard as they could
after the leader.

They looked pretty funny in the water, for
longhorns aren't built for swimming as a permanent means of
transportation, even if they do do it pretty good when they have
to. About all we could see of one when he was swimming would be his
horns sticking up all shiny wet and a pair of great big eyes
rolling so hard they looked all white and huge, and then back of
the head there'd be a swirl of water and sometimes, a way back,
there'd be a ratty, soaked end knot of tail.

They swam across real fine, most of them,
and scrambled up on the far bank with a wild, happy lurch.

About the last fifty of them, though, hadn't
wanted to get into the water. I yelled and flailed my rope around
and they finally did get started though they was maybe thirty-forty
yards behind the rest.

I splashed in behind them, all dumb and
happy, and I found out Ike had been right. That water was almighty
cold when it hit belt level. I wasn't much more than in good before
I heard somebody hollering.

"They're millin', Duster, they're
millin'."

Right at first I didn't know what he had
meant, but even as low as I was to the water then I could see
across the backs and horns of the drag cows, and I saw right off
that the front cows in my little bunch was trying to turn around
and swim back. And they was trying to turn right into the ones
swimming up from behind. Now, if you ever let a swimming longhorn
get jostled in the water so it's not on top of its feet, you can
count yourself a drowned steer, and it seemed as though we might
have quite a few floating off upside down.

"I'm coming, boys," I shouted, though it
didn't do the first bit of good just making noise. I was still up
in the saddle, and I kicked that horse's ribs for all I was
worth—which wasn't much with my feet and legs under water. Mostly
the kicking just seemed to raise a splash when I jumped up and down
trying to kick harder. The water seemed to collect between the can
tie and my bottom, and every time I'd move down, a gout of water
would curl up to land all over my back. Still, it must of done some
good for my horse got to swimming faster, and I guided him around
the bunch of swimming beeves so I could reach the place where the
ones up front was milling.

It seemed to take an awful long time to get
there, but the other boys were too far away and I had to try. I
like to got sick when I saw a couple steers get out of balance and
slip down under the water. I knew when they came up again they'd be
drowned as dead as if they'd been butchered.

"Hurry, Duster," somebody called.

That made me feel sort of mad for I was
already going as fast as I could, but I didn't say anything. I just
bounced up and down some more and drummed my heels into my horse's
ribs as hard as the water would let me. I'd seen one or two more
steers go under by then.

That horse was a pretty fair swimmer and a
real good cow pony, and he gave it all he could once he knew where
we was headed. When we got up to the front of the bunch he pushed
right into the middle of them toward where a knot of steers was
tangled up with about half of them headed right and the rest trying
to get back where we'd just been.

"Turn the black, Duster. That black one in
the middle." I recognized it was Ike's voice, so I pointed my
horse's head toward the black steer he was talking about.

I was nearly to it when
some miserable, one-eared steer that was so scared its eyeballs
didn't show anything at all except
yellow-splotched white tried to climb up onto my horse's
withers to get out of the water. One minute I was riding fine and
the next there was that steer trying to shove his nose in my
lap.

The horse went rolling over to the left with
the weight of that steer's hooves trying to walk up it, and I flung
myself off to the right with an awful splash.

I grabbed hold of the nearest pair of horns
I could reach, which happened to be on the black steer, and hauled
myself astraddle of him like I was on a horse again. Off in the
distance I heard somebody yell, "Ride 'im, boy, give 'im fits."

The steer was still trying to get back on
shore and with him wriggling so, I near fell off again. I grabbed
hold of his other horn too then to save myself from falling, and my
weight of catching myself like that turned his head. Another animal
that was still swimming the right way bumped into his near shoulder
and turned him some more, and before I knew what was happening we
were straightened back around and swimming in the right
direction.

Getting that black out of the way was like
pulling a plug. It unstopped most of the mill and pretty soon Tommy
and Eben were there and got the rest of them pointed right. Me, I
just rode that black steer on across the river and stayed up on him
right onto dry land.

"Duster, that there was the neatest trick I
seen in years," Split said when I got across and had got off the
steer and out of his way lest he take to trying to pitch me
off.

"I got to admit it's so," Ike said. "We
thought we'd lost that whole bunch 'til you flang yourself off your
horse and grabbed onto that steer that was causin' all the trouble.
I'll tell Mister Sam about it for sure."

"It took guts," Split said.

I felt sort of embarrassed by all the
praise, especially for something I hadn't meant to do. For a spell,
I just stood there dripping water into muddy little pools on the
ground by my feet. And right then I could see my feet real easy,
the direction I was looking.

As wet as I was and as low
as the sun was by then, it was
getting
pretty cold except for two spots right behind my ears and they just
got hotter and hotter. I didn't really need anybody to tell me what
them spots looked like, but naturally somebody did. Old Split just
couldn't leave it be.

"Boy, you've lit up bright as a coal oil
lamp in a fancy house ... an' about the same color too. Hey, Tommy,
don't he blush as pretty as a fourteen-year-old gal gettin' looked
at by her first beau? Shhh-oot, Duster, cain't you take a little
bit of a compliment?"

"It ain't that," I said, and I felt myself
getting still redder.

"Aw, come on now, li'l schoolgirl," Split
kept on. "You kin come off'n a horse an' wrestle a swimmin' steer,
you kin sure keep from goin' all aflutter when somebody whispers
purty words to you." He flapped his hands around in the air and got
a pretty fair response, even from Tommy.

I had liked aplenty getting that praise from
Ike, and to tell the truth I guess I wouldn't of spoken up except
that I knew if I let old Split run on any further I might find
myself trading in the name Duster for one I'd like even less. "It
ain't that, I told you."

"Then whyn't you tell us so's we can share
it?" Eben put in.

"I'd ruther not."

"Aw puhleese, li'l schoolgal." That was that
darned Split again.

I went to slap my hat down on the ground and
came up with nothing but hair. To top off everything else I'd gone
and lost my hat back there in the water somewhere. "It's just that
things ain't always what they look."

"Like them red ears of yourn? They really
ain't red?"

"Oh, da ... da ... darn it if you just got
to know, you'all seen me jump off that horse and wrestle that ole
black steer over here, right? Well, dang it, I fell off that horse
more'n jumped and lit sorta close to that steer and ... oh, shoot."
They was peering at me real close. "Well, anyways, I cain't swim a
lick."

"You was just hangin' on," Split howled.
"You an' that ole steer was just hangin' on to each other."

I wished he'd laugh so hard he'd fall off
his horse and bust his head.

"Split, you fetch yourself back across and
help Jesus bring the horses over. He's coming up to the crossing
now. Tommy...Eben...you two get them cows bunched and settled down
again. We don't want to lose them now we've got 'em across. And
Duster, you an' me'll go downriver a ways and see if we can find
any of them drownded steers we lost coming over. Their hides are
still worth something."

I was some grateful to Ike for busting us
up. And he was right—the hides would be worth something if we could
find them. Ike had caught up my horse when he climbed out of the
water without me, so I got back on him and set off.

Besides, maybe I could find my hat somewhere
down the river.

MISTER SAM SILAS and the rest of the boys
come up to us two days later with a herd of more than six hundred
scraggly steers and a few old cows too wore out and worthless to
calve again. We was glad to see them, and pitched in to help them
get across the river.

I was gladder than most, for I hadn't found
my hat, and I'd been hoping someone in the main bunch might have an
extra he could spare. It was awful hot going bareheaded and,
besides, I felt nekkid without something on my head. A body just
naturally put on a hat as soon as he was old enough to wear
britches, and I wasn't used to being without one.

As it turned out, there wasn't a spare hat
to be had, so in the end I had to talk Digger Bill out of a piece
of old sacking to tie around my head. It was better than nothing,
and since I didn't have to look at myself ever I used it the whole
time we was on the drive to Rockport.

That first night after the
rest of them caught up to us, Mister Sam Silas called a meet with
the owners on the drive, and he stopped to talk with me a minute
and invited me personal to come sit with them. He could of sent
word with just anybody else, of course, but Mister Sam Silas was
like that. There
wasn't anything
standoffish about him even if he was the biggest cowman
around.

After supper, most of the boys, even Ike,
settled around some spread blankets to pike some monte and swap
some lies, and the owners gathered around the cooking fire where
the coffeepot would be close. There was Mister Sam Silas, of
course, and Charlie Emmons and B.J. Hollis. Eben sat in to
represent Mister James Thorn who had stayed back at Dog Town. And
there was me. I noticed nobody at the fire represented Mister
Silvus MacReedy, though Crazy Longo and a couple of the Mexican
hands worked for him. Still, Mister MacReedy and Mister Sam Silas
was awful close, so I figured Mister Sam was probably representing
the both of them. Not that it would of been my place to say
anything anyway. I sat off to one side and kept my mouth shut.

Once everyone had a full cup of coffee,
Mister Sam Silas opened things up. "I've been over the tally sheets
today—the one I made up and the one Ike gave me from his gather—and
I wanted to let everyone know where they stand before we set out
for Rockport. That way, if anyone wants to cut down on the number
of beeves with his brand we can put them back across the river
before we make our drive. We tried to bring along only the scrub
cattle, but there may be some you'd want to turn back anyway."

Mister Sam stood up and fished around in the
pockets of his linen duster for a scrap of paper. He was the only
one of us wearing a ready-made coat like that, and he did stand out
real fine with the fire flickering bright patches of light on that
nearly white-colored linen. Once he found the paper, he smoothed it
out and squatted by the fire to read. He cleared his throat and
held the piece of paper out way far away from him.

"We brought up 618 head with us from the
Frio. I haven't checked again since we got here, but I don't
believe we lost any today when we crossed. Ike's tally, this side
of the river, was 273. Most of both herds were mavericks, and we
gathered only our own brands of those that had already been
marked.

"Putting Ike's figures
with mine for the stock book, I
show 262
animals with my Rocker S, 2 S and Pine Tree brands. Charlie,
there's 111 with your CJ brand. Hollis has 96 steers in his bunch."
Mister Sam looked up from the paper for a minute. "Some of yours
are pretty nice-looking stuff, B.J. You might want to cut a few out
and hold them another year.

"Eben, Mister Thorn has 161. And Duster,
you've got 78 there. That leaves 183 that belong to MacReedy. He
authorized me to make his herd and sell them." He folded the paper
and shoved it back into a pocket.

"Now then, what I figured to do if it's
agreeable with everyone, is to drop off what spare hands we don't
need and start moving day after tomorrow. That way, if anyone wants
to send cattle back to wait another year and hope for a better
market, the boys going back can carry them along and turn them
loose closer to home."

I felt my heart drop. If there was one thing
Mister Sam Silas didn't need it was to have me along when we had so
many hands in the bunch some was being sent home. Not that I could
blame him. It takes a lot more people to chase cows out of the
brush than to drive a herd. Still, I'd been feeling awful good
until then.

When we set out, I'd been grateful for the
thirty cents a day. Then, when I found out I was getting a share of
the mavericks I had worked out that fifty of them could mean $300
hard money if the market held. And 78 cows—that would be over $400
maybe. That much hard money would make an awful lot of difference
at home. I didn't know for sure, but I calculated it should meet
the taxes, pay us up with Mister James's mercantile, and keep us
going for another year to boot. But I guess I was getting greedy.
I'd been hoping to make enough off day wages to buy me a hat and
maybe a pair of boots, too.